


one thing certain

by middlemarch



Category: Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Domestic, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Marriage, Post-Canon, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 10:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Bathsheba's second marriage was altogether different.





	one thing certain

“Bathsheba, what is this?” Gabriel said. He seemed rooted in place as if he’d become his name, some chimera of man and tree. Was there some sort of male equivalent of a dryad, Bathsheba wondered, and could Gabriel be one? She would ask him later what he thought, explaining what a dryad was but she wouldn’t tell him the story of Eurydice, because he might become melancholy, remembering again the time when he assumed his longings would never be met. 

“You’re teasing me, you must see it’s a bathtub,” she said. 

It could hardly be anything else, a great, hulking cask of cast copper set just to the right side of the fireplace. She’d had to get Jan and two other farmhands to help move it up to the bedchamber, Liddy chuckling behind her hand the whole time. She’d expected to need the men’s help in moving the bed closer to the windows but somehow, once the tub was set down, the room achieved some subtle symmetry it had lacked though she’d never noticed. If Gabriel wanted to take it out, she’d let him but she hoped he wouldn’t.

“A bathtub,” he repeated, taking a step closer. Perhaps he was less baffled than tired. The farm had never been run so well but his diligent efforts had a cost and they had not spent as much time sleeping as they might have.

“I said I meant to astonish you all,” she said. He laughed and he didn’t sound tired.

“Shall you be showing the neighborhood then? Parading them through our bedchamber?”

“No, decidedly no,” Bathsheba said softly. “It is enough to astonish you,” she added, tugging at the loosely tied sash of her dressing gown and shrugging the sheer indigo cashmere off her shoulders. It made a dark blue shadow at her bare feet, a contrast to the wavering gold and sepia of the fire, the fading carmine of the sunset. Gabriel didn’t gasp, didn’t blink an eye.

“Am I meant to watch or assist?” he asked. It sounded as if he’d be contented with either. She could be too, she supposed, some night when she soaped his bare back, the skin silky under her hands, the breadth of his shoulders somehow more impressive without his shirt and waistcoat. To see his face, his eyes closed with the pleasure of the hot water she poured in, the scent of lavender and rosemary—she’d be eager to watch his lips soften, part in exhalation. Not tonight though. Not tonight.

“Neither. You’re meant to join me. And don’t say you can’t, because there’s plenty of room and I made sure not to fill it to the top,” Bathsheba said.

“I wasn’t going to say that. The thing’s the size of Leviathan. I should think we’ll have room to spare,” Gabriel said. He’d walked closer to the tub, to her, but he hadn’t started to undress and he looked tall and solemn, almost too handsome to be her Gabriel Oak.

“Don’t say you won’t, because you will, won’t you? I’m afraid you think it’s improper, for us to bathe together, but I don’t see how it is. And it’s a far sight nicer than standing beside you dipping sheep,” Bathsheba said.

“I will. I promised you everything. Anything,” Gabriel said. Bathsheba moved close enough to reach his knotted neck-cloth, felt his hands warm at her waist through her muslin chemise.

“I’ll help. Otherwise, the water will get cold.”

It did, but they hardly noticed, his mouth like a brand on the side of her throat, her hand on his thigh, his at her breast, her waist and then stroking her below the cooling water, almost invisible. The rag rug darkened with the water that slopped over the rim when she twisted to face him, to kiss wherever she could reach as they moved together, the clear water obscured with the flickering shadows from the hearth. It took several minutes, once she’d cried out and he’d spent, his hands tight on her hips, for them to notice the growing chill, her face tucked in the space between his neck and shoulder.

“There’re towels on the rocking chair. In front of the fire. Should be warm,” she mumbled against his skin, tasting him lazily to feel him shudder.

“I imagine we’ll want those. Sometime,” he said, the smile she couldn’t see in his voice. He brushed back a loose wet curl from where it clung to her cheek.

“I don’t want to get out. But I don’t want to get any colder,” she admitted, loosening her hold on him.

“Let me,” he said, moving around, somehow managing to pick her up in his arms and step out of the tub without stumbling as she cried, “No, Gabriel, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“No, I won’t,” he said, picking up the first towel to drape around her shoulders, not troubled he was naked before her. He had been before, he’d be sure to tell her, with less surety of a gracious response. She secured the towel around her, then took the other, offered it to him.

“You’ll do a better job than I will, love,” he said, relaxed and easy, gleaming with water, with gold, with the firelight and her name on his lips. She liked to see him so willing to ask. Ask me, she’d said, ask and he had, he did and perhaps, when they were warm and dry with the covers drawn up and the moonlight, he’d ask again, _Sh’ba please please_ and she’d answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on Tumblr, once upon a time, wished for some smutty Bathsheba/Gabriel fic and hadn't been able to find any. There is not a lot on AO3 full stop so I decided to oblige-- at least a little.


End file.
